1. Looks like there various news agencies and there was a bug dieting the msn icon. The publisher names are all different.
2. WaPo, “metaphor”? No child, try again.

Erecting a dyke? On my 196!? Shocked i tell you!

Handy (2) from Ohdoki. It’s so much nicer than stroking yourself and quite a bit easier to clean than a fleshlight.

It was the lack of handholding. Between modular armor, spells and enchantments without guardrails, lack of leveled lists, diverse lore/region based loot, and other things like shopkeepers having a physical inventory you could steal from, you had a kind of freedom and respect for the player that the later games failed to replicate.

There was still a lot of funkiness to it of course between graphics, bugs, severe lack og QoL features, and just being an older game. The chunk loading was miserable, especially on console where you’d walk a few minutes then load just as long. For the era, however, those drawbacks were forgiveable.